swampman posted:I have been trying for years to write a thread about how I see cars as weapons and fundamentally destructive to life, I can never get it going because the topic is just too enormous. The implication of everyone in amerika having access to a fully functional self driving vehicle..... it's the equivalent of VBIED added to the repertory of daily micro violence. FFS!!!
doesnt mike davis have a chapter bout LA car culture in City of Quartz... wouldn't mind re-reading that in light of uber et al.
Chthonic_Goat_666 posted:doesnt mike davis have a chapter bout LA car culture in City of Quartz... wouldn't mind re-reading that in light of uber et al.
I have a copy o that as well. Mine is unread.
swampman posted:I have been trying for years to write a thread about how I see cars as weapons and fundamentally destructive to life, I can never get it going because the topic is just too enormous
it's not my fault that Endless Shrimp is Back at Red Lobster
I only suffered minor injuries and he turned out to be a nice guy with a solid angle on the depravities of neocolonialism, so that was a pleasant surprise
Still, the idea that humming around spewing toxic gas in a deadly vehicle large enough to carry 4 people but will almost always contain one makes me seethe sometimes
fuck cars I'm going to avoid getting one as long as possible
swampman posted:Chthonic_Goat_666 posted:doesnt mike davis have a chapter bout LA car culture in City of Quartz... wouldn't mind re-reading that in light of uber et al.
I have a copy o that as well. Mine is unread.
skimming through it maybe it has less than i remember and its just the little that's there that left an impression on me. i hate when books are badly indexed or have vague chapter titles like "new confessions" (chapter 6 in this davis book) - re-finding tidbits becomes impossible.
Belphegor posted:I only suffered minor injuries and he turned out to be a nice guy with a solid angle on the depravities of neocolonialism,
catchphrase
Chthonic_Goat_666 posted:theres an australian uber-clone which appears to be trying to incorporate some kind of mmorpg style virtual economy into its business:
http://www.gocatch.com/driver/resources/driver-app/
You get GoPoints for every job you do, but when there is a short fare or if it is very busy, then you can get extra GoPoints. You can see the GoPoints for every job before you accept.
The number of GoPoints you have determines your status level and that gives you priority access to on-demand jobs and Advance Bookings. Drivers get rewarded for doing short fares and picking up passengers when it is busy.
GoCoins are created every time a passenger pays through GoCatch. The GoCoin is then shared between the passenger and the driver. The split is determined by an algorithm that factors in the size of the fare and current level of demand.
In early 2018, you will be able to make purchases and collect rewards with GoCoins.
*nodding intently with a thousand yard stare* uh huh. i seee. fascinating.
rebrand cars as mounts
tears posted:Chthonic_Goat_666 posted:
theres an australian uber-clone which appears to be trying to incorporate some kind of mmorpg style virtual economy into its business:
http://www.gocatch.com/driver/resources/driver-app/
You get GoPoints for every job you do, but when there is a short fare or if it is very busy, then you can get extra GoPoints. You can see the GoPoints for every job before you accept.
The number of GoPoints you have determines your status level and that gives you priority access to on-demand jobs and Advance Bookings. Drivers get rewarded for doing short fares and picking up passengers when it is busy.
GoCoins are created every time a passenger pays through GoCatch. The GoCoin is then shared between the passenger and the driver. The split is determined by an algorithm that factors in the size of the fare and current level of demand.
In early 2018, you will be able to make purchases and collect rewards with GoCoins.
*nodding intently with a thousand yard stare* uh huh. i seee. fascinating.
rebrand cars as mounts
wheres the car armour mod?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-11/uber-loses-bid-to-overturn-workers-rights-decision/9140406
Uber loses UK appeal bid to overturn workers' rights decision
Taxi app Uber has lost a bid to overturn a tribunal decision its drivers deserved workers' rights such as the minimum wage, in a blow to the company as it also battles to keep its licence in London.
Uber immediately said it would appeal against Friday's decision by the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) in central London.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/11/uber-and-softbank-might-finally-have-a-deal-but-what-does-it-mean.html
including hubert horan's take.
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lyft expanding to canada.
related to tech, i wonder if/when the bubble for streaming services is gonna burst. netflix losing money... amazon apparently spending big on this LoTR serires
Amazon just bought series rights to Lord of the Rings. "Insane" gets thrown around a lot. In this case, it is not an overstatement. pic.twitter.com/36279tUgau
— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) November 13, 2017
The NDAA will now be voted on by the House of Representatives, where it has been rubber-stamped every year since 1961, before being signed into law by Trump. While reporting by the bourgeois press on the NDAA has been limited overall, a key section of the bill, titled “Procurement Through Commercial E-Commerce Portals,” has been almost entirely overlooked. This section establishes the framework whereby Amazon will be able to corner the market for Defense Department procurements worth roughly $53 billion, and its inclusion in the NDAA is a product of the direct links connecting Amazon with the state and military-intelligence apparatus.
Already marked as a semi-official wing of the US military-intelligence apparatus by their back-room deal with the CIA, Amazon will likely soon become the primary supplier for numerous items demanded by the Defense Department.
The Pentagon will now purchase office equipment, internet service, and all other equipment needed to direct its out war crimes directly from Amazon, both in the US and at its military bases internationally. In other words, if the bill becomes law, Amazon will be providing hundreds of thousands of CIA agents, military personnel, prosecutors, and immigration agents with their pencils, desks, and chairs.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/11/11/amzn-n11.html
Chthonic_Goat_666 posted:https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/01/elon-musk-tesla-fired-700-people.htmltesla shares are down 3% (doesn't seem like much?)
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4122890-tesla-approaches-terminal-decline
In 2016, Elon Musk bought a used Herrenknecht TBM and declared that his Boring Company will revolutionize subterranean transportation, as if the New York City Subway and London Underground, or the submarine Channel Tunnel and the Swiss Gotthard Basis Tunnel were nothing but precursory exercises by unskilled engineers to future tunneling proper. As always, Elon Musk claimed that to make his ideas feasible, TBMs simply have to “go faster” and “go 3D”, whatever that means. After obtaining “verbal approval” to build a high-speed “Hyperloop” tunnel connecting NYC with Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington D.C. and buying a second used TBM, the company has focused on selling hats.
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swampman posted:Chthonic_Goat_666 posted:https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/01/elon-musk-tesla-fired-700-people.htmltesla shares are down 3% (doesn't seem like much?)
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4122890-tesla-approaches-terminal-decline
thanks this is exactly the kind of thing i needed to read
roseweird posted:the faily uber thread is so long
i like, very nice
Tesla hails the performance of its all-electric truck:
— AFP news agency (@AFP) November 17, 2017
* 0-60 mph in five seconds
* maximum 80,000 pound load
* 500-mile range on single chargehttps://t.co/1YGgL69gCk
this acceleration (0-60mph in 5 seconds) would take over 1250 kW for a truck that weighed 9000kg (an unloaded one). maximum capacity of the tesla X battery is 100kW
swampman posted:https://seekingalpha.com/article/4122890-tesla-approaches-terminal-decline
this guy is awesome. so far he's quoted adorno, clausewitz, and beckett in his financial advice columns.
Really not a great link
1. Uber plans to sell the old Sears building in Oakland’s Uptown district for $220 million — nearly double what the ride-hailing company paid for it in 2015, reports Jon Peterson of The Registry. The huge profit that Uber stands to make on the property is yet another indication of downtown Oakland’s red-hot office space market. Uber had originally planned to open a headquarters at the building when the company bought it for $123.5 million but later abandoned those plans.
My loathsome and loveable slumlord told me about this the other day. Initially Uber moving to Oakland was used to green light lots of new expensive condos that didn't really have the capital to get off the ground (future site of... kinda deal). Now, probably a dozen of them are halfway up. About a year ago there were flyers up that said, "30,000 new Uber employees coming to Oakland, where are they gonna live? We need condos now" kinda thing. Now, they're doubling up on their real estate investment and bailing. Not terribly important, but, it's interesting to see how these tech companies intervene in development. Was Uber really ever gonna make an office there? Or did Oakland just need a push to ramp up it's development.
paid $100,000 to hackers and covered it up
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Very correct
— Shira Ovide (@ShiraOvide) November 22, 2017
the cash burn is definitely insane, but according to those shareholder reports I linked tesla actually had more money at the start of q3 (3.5 billion) than they did at the end of q2 (3 billion). when will it all dry up...
from the article
The Founders Series Roadster will cost buyers a $250,000 down payment even though it’s not coming for more than two years. Orders of those cars are capped at 1,000, meaning they alone could generate $250 million. Tesla is charging a total of $50,000 for reservations of the regular Roadster. Companies can also pre-order electric Semi trucks for $5,000, though they don’t go into production until 2019.
this kinda shit seems desperate
Edited by Chthonic_Goat_666 ()
Chthonic_Goat_666 posted:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-21/uber-concealed-cyberattack-that-exposed-57-million-people-s-datapaid $100,000 to hackers and covered it up
Lol at the journalists "Yet another story that is hard to believe," "It's so crazy!" How do people manage to still be surprised at Uber being a shitshow
Chthonic_Goat_666 posted:swampman posted:Chthonic_Goat_666 posted:https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/01/elon-musk-tesla-fired-700-people.htmltesla shares are down 3% (doesn't seem like much?)
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4122890-tesla-approaches-terminal-decline
thanks this is exactly the kind of thing i needed to read
re-reading this one:
Tesla recently recalled 11,000 Model X vehicles for defective seats and not for the first time. Unhappy with its prior suppliers, Tesla had brought production in-house. The company is taking its quest to vertical integration to new levels of absurdity, the NYT reports: “The company had even concocted its own Tesla blend of coffee to serve near its cafeterias. 'If we cannot get exactly what we want from the world,' one executive told me, 'then we have to go do it ourselves.'” The Model X is now among the 10 most unreliable cars.
ahha. gonna check out some more articles by this guy and others on the site...
Chthonic_Goat_666 posted:the tesla stuff is interesting to me, i'd put their chances of success above uber, all the joint private-public sector stuff they're doing is probably a good strategy. i don't think their business model is inherently bound to fail like uber. yet they're still losing massive amounts of money. so idk.
after reading more about tesla i've completely changed my mind on this; i think the crash for them will come earlier than uber's. just my guess, ill be happy to be wrong if uber goes first
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Caesura109 posted:Elon Musk knows how to make promises. Even by his own standards, the promises made last week while introducing two new Tesla vehicles—the heavy-duty Semi Truck and the speedy Roadster—are monuments of envelope pushing. To deliver, according to close observers of battery technology, Tesla would have to far exceed what is currently thought possible.
roundabout way to say "elon musk lies about defying the laws of physics"
from the article:
Take the Tesla Semi: Musk vowed it would haul an unprecedented 80,000 pounds for 500 miles on a single charge, then recharge 400 miles of range in 30 minutes. That would require, based on Bloomberg estimates, a charging system that's 10 times more powerful than one of the fastest battery-charging networks on the road today—Tesla’s own Superchargers.
thanks for the link - not only is this battery power apparently impossible with current technology, current 18 wheelers running on diesel can go much much further on a full tank. looking at forums posts a reasonable estimate seems to be 6 miles per gallon with dual 150 gallon tanks. so let's say about 1,800 miles tops on a single fuelling. just watching truckers re-fuelling on youtube and it seems to only take about 5-10 minutes.
here's a good sample post on a gun forum (lol):
I normally fuel up at Colby Kansas (895 miles) or Limon CO (1036) when I run from Indianapolis to Denver (1127 miles). The trucks we run have (normally) dual 120 gallon tanks. I was able to make it from Indy to Denver without refueling. That truck had dual 150 gallon tanks. I normally fuel up when it get between 1/4 tank and 3/8 tank. You never know when that snow storm might leave you stranded somewhere. I have also had a run where I went from Indy to Junction City KS (650 miles) before I had to fuel up, that truck was rough on fuel. Dank it like and alcoholic drinks beer. My longest run without fueling was from Salt Lake City UT to Whiteland IN (1584 miles). I had about 1/8 of a tank left. It does vary. Those are all pulling a gross weight of 70,000 lbs to 80,000lbs.
so not only is the battery apparently impossible, even an impossible tesla truck doesn't seem very time-efficient compared to regular diesel big rigs. are the savings on fuel costs worth going half the distance while taking 3-6 times longer to recharge?
from the bloomberg article again regarding savings on fuel:
The sticker price of any electric truck, regardless of size, is going to be higher than its diesel equivalent because of the batteries, which alone can cost as much as some standard diesel trucks. The $180,000 Tesla Semi will compete with diesels that cost as little as $100,000. The trick is to offset those higher upfront costs through lower maintenance and fuel savings.
Perhaps Tesla's most head-scratching revelation is that it will guarantee truckers electricity rates of 7 cents per kilowatt hour. That could result in fuels savings of more than $30,000 a year for some truckers, according to Bloomberg estimates. Partly, Musk said, this will be done by adding solar power and massive battery packs at the charging stations.
While the economics of such a plan vary by region, under any scenario that BNEF's Morsy expects, Tesla will be heavily subsidizing those electricity rates for customers. He estimated that Tesla will pay a minimum of 40 cents per kilowatt hour, on average, for every 7 cents paid by a trucking company.
“There's no way you can reconcile 7 cents a kilowatt hour with anything on the grid that puts a megawatt hour of energy into a battery,” Morsy said. “That simply does not exist.”
That may sound like a disastrous financial plan, but it's no different from what Tesla does for its current Supercharger network. Tesla offers free electricity to most of its Model S and Model X customers while paying almost $1 per kilowatt hour to produce it, Morsy said. That amounts to a subsidy of as much as $1,000 per car in 2017.
Many electric utilities base their commercial rates on the peak amount of electricity that a customer draws at one time, even if that peak occurs only for a brief period. Tesla’s Megacharger stations would incur extremely high charges by drawing so much power so quickly. The best chance for mitigating those charges are to build Megachargers at existing truck terminals that already draw a lot of power, Morsy said, and by adding massive battery packs that can spread demand over time.
From another perspective, these subsidies to support Megachargers could be a boon to Tesla’s balance sheet as it wades into an entirely new industry. It allows the company to maximize its upfront revenue by charging a lot for the trucks while spreading out the cost of building and operating the charging network over time.
so tesla are planning to subsidise energy costs to try to make their (probably impossible) batteries for semis economically viable? wtf... starting to think the company wont survive to the 2019 tesla semi release at this rate...
Edited by Chthonic_Goat_666 ()